Cancer cover girl rallies to launch fashion line

In a playroom at Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children, a frail, bald-headed 13-year-old girl is between takes for “omg! Insider,” a TV celebrity-gossip show, talking about her new fashion line.

Talia Joy Castellano of Oviedo — her body emaciated from a six-year battle with cancer — might seem too sick to do more than send text messages on her ever-present smart phone. She waits in a wheelchair, a thin tube bringing oxygen to her nostrils. But when the camera starts to roll again, she is transformed.

"Oh, my gosh!" she says, on her feet and waving her hand toward a rack of garments. "My favorite! I really wanted jean jackets in my line because I'm totally into denim … and studs. Studs are just everywhere you look!"

In a world of unlikely Internet sensations, Talia is a chatty, doe-eyed teen queen. She has drawn more than a half-million subscribers to her YouTube channel, taliajoy18, which began with makeup tutorials and shopping-trip treasures and morphed into facing a fatal diagnosis.

She has been on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, where she was made an "honorary CoverGirl," and The Huffington Post web site, as well as in publications from London's Daily Mail to Venezuela's El Nacional. Collectively, the videos she shoots and edits herself have been viewed more than 40 million times.

Now, with the help of eclectic, Los Angeles-based fashion designer Urbana Chappa, she is developing a line of teen clothing she hopes will benefit other kids with cancer.

"That Bald Chick," it's called. TBC for short.

"She has this way about her — she kind of hooks you with her personality, with her smile," said Chappa, 33, who first saw Talia on Ellen. Having survived breast cancer that hit at age 19, Chappa felt she had a kindred spirit. "She has this spunkiness that has inspired me."

And, it seems now, millions of others.

"When I talk to people about the way I feel about cancer or death … the way I talk is very explicit," Talia says in a March 10th video, where she revealed that the cancer has spread and is no longer treatable. "Because I face reality. It's not like I'm happy [about the diagnosis] or something ... but I still believe I can beat the [expletive] out of cancer."

'The rules change'

On camera, she is not merely comfortable; she is mesmerizing. She is dynamic, playful, sometimes irreverent.

"My body is in God's hands," she says in one video. "I don't want to sound religious, 'cause I'm not a religious person. I'm a Jewish person."

"A ball of fire," her mother, Desiree Castellano, says of her.

On Valentine's Day 2007, Talia was diagnosed with Stage 4 neuroblastoma, a cancer found in groups of nerve cells, most often in children under 5. Talia was 7.

Since then, she has endured repeated rounds of chemotherapy, surgery, radiation and antibody treatments — and has been declared cancer-free three separate times.

Yet in April 2011, cancer returned again, and now Talia is fighting not only the original neuroblastoma but a secondary cancer, a precursor to leukemia, in her bones. Despite attempts at drug trials and stem-cell treatments, her mother says, there are no options left, save for a miracle.

"Don't misunderstand," says Desiree Castellano. "She is not giving up her fight to live. She is fighting to live her life to the fullest. She is fighting every single day."

Castellano, an aesthetician, had let her daughter experiment with makeup soon after they discovered the girl's frequent fevers were more than a virus.

"I asked her oncologist, 'Do you think it's OK for me to let her do this?' And he said to let her do whatever made her happy …. When your child is diagnosed with something like this, the rules change."

'I got everything'

These days, Talia spends most of her time in the hospital, where, when she's able, she continues to do media interviews, meet with publicists, Tweet, upload YouTube videos, surf the Net and cross off more items from her bucket list than one might reasonably expect.

Become a fashion designer? Check. Ride in a hot-air balloon? Not yet.

Chappa had flown out April 15 and spent four days meeting with Talia in her hospital room, pouring over 300 fabric swatches and getting the girl to sketch her ideas. The new line, aimed at teens, will feature a range of mini-skirts, bold-colored blouses, denim vests and trendy tees, some with an image of Talia's distinctive eyes splashed across the front.

Though Chappa is rushing to make everything happen while Talia is still healthy enough to appreciate it, there is much to do: marketing to a retailer, mass production, setting up a website — thatbaldchick.net — and establishing a foundation to ensure the proceeds will go to help cover both any lingering medical bills for her family and other families like hers.

Talia knows that cancer touches not only the individual.

"I think it has definitely torn us apart a little bit, especially my sister," she says, starting to cry. "Because when I was first diagnosed, I got everything, and she got nothing. I just felt so bad … And whenever my mom and my stepdad fight, I feel like it's because of me, because we have so many bills. They have so much to take care of that I ask for. Just everything."

It is a rare moment of sadness. It doesn't last.

"Can I have a tissue?" she says abruptly. As she has told strangers repeatedly, she has no desire to spend her remaining time moping and depressed.

"The No. 1 question I get asked is: 'Are you going to die?' " she explains in a recent video. "Yes, I am — and so are you. We all are going to die."

She starts to sing-song, mockingly. "It's the cirrrr-cle of life. You see it? It's a circle. It goes 'round and around."